Whilst the first Gourmet Odyssey Harvest
Experience days of 2015 got underway last weekend, all of our
partner winemakers have either started the harvest or are busy with
the final preparations. A quick round robin of our wineries as the
first clip of secateurs get under way...

2015 is a year of early harvests

As usual, the harvest season got underway at the Allegria and Domaine la Cabotte wineries, as they are
situated in the south of France, in the Languedoc and Côtes du
Rhône regions respectively, where the high temperatures and long
hours of sunlight have enabled the grapes to reach a good level
of maturity, as explained in our
review of the work in the vineyard post. Domaine Allegria
started the harvest on the 20th August, 2 days earlier than 2014
and 20 days earlier than 2013!

The early start to the harvest is the case for all our partner
winemakers in France, such as at Domaine Chapelle where the staff returned
from the summer holidays on the 24th August to be ready in time.
The winemakers are quietly confident that the quality will be
very good this year, but there are a few worries that the
quantity will be less due to the lack of water in some regions
that limited the growth of the grapes.

In Chablis, the date of the harvest has been brought forward at
the last minute. On the 31st August, a hail storm damaged some of
the vineyards in Chablis, and so the grapes have to be picked as
quickly as possible, as the risk of the grapes being affected by
mould dramatically increases. The harvest has started one week
earlier than initially planned.

Lots of work in the cellar to welcome the 2015
harvest

In the cellar, the 2014 and some of the 2013 vintages are still
being pampered. However, space needs to made for the arrival of
the new vintage. In some wineries, such as Château de la Bonnelière, some of the
wines have therefore been bottled to free up some of the vats and
barrels. The winery has also had to adapt the organisation of the
chai to be able to receive the harvest of the 10 additional
hectares that they have acquired this year.

At Château Beau Rivage, the 2015
harvest will be worked in a newly renovated chai, and everywhere,
such as at Domaine Allegria, all of the equipment has been
cleaned and organised to best receive the grapes. At Domaine Jean-Marc Brocard, all of the
materiel is tested, the conveyor belts, presses, sorting table
etc, before being called into action for real.

And the other big task is to get ready to welcome the teams of
harvesters who will arrive at the wineries to pick the grapes
from anywhere between 10 days and a month depending on the
winery. So the pressure is mounting as the harvests get under
way, but our winemakers are keeping their smiles as they think of
the great wines that will hopefully result!